


Full & Fierce & Sharp & Sly

by Val Mora (valmora)



Category: Secret of Kells (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:25:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aidan's favorite queen-cat is heavier than usual, and he gains a friend, in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full & Fierce & Sharp & Sly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chicafrom3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/gifts).



> Title from this translation of the Pangur Bán poem:  
> http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/pangur.html 
> 
> Pangur Bán literally translates to "white fuller", according to Wikipedia. I have also translated 'fuller' as 'waulker' for the reference to cloth-waulking and by extension waulking songs.
> 
> Thanks to peridium, for the kitten beta.

The queen-cat in the barns was a good mouser, kept them from the grain-stores and the gardens, but she wasn't good enough to be this heavy. 

"Kittens, of course, and a good few of them," Brother Abraham said, his hands gentle against the queen's belly. She fussed, angry with the handling, and swiped at him, but Brother Abraham cared for all the animals in the abbey and was used to that, so she didn't draw blood.

"Wonder who the father is," Aidan said speculatively, and Brother Abraham laughed, setting her down. She darted away into the bushes, slower than she had been only a month or so ago.

"She's made them all herself. You'll see."

 

Brother Aidan found her and the kittens in the back of his own room, nestled into the winter blanket he'd neglected to put away. He kept it because his feet often grew cold when he worked on texts.

"Hello, Medb," he greeted her, and peered into the bundle of kittens. There were four of them. He doubted she'd want cold food – he certainly didn't like it himself – so he put out some of his hot sausage for her when he could, and she seemed to appreciate that, or at least it disappeared quickly.

The four kittens were all very striking: two of them tricolored, and one mottled black-orange like her, and one all-white.

"You're going to be quite charming to your lover-cats, aren't you," Aidan murmured to the little white-furred one – a tom, he saw; the others were queens. Aidan knew better than to touch, of course, and better than to name them. There were always a few cats who died of this or that disease, or kicked by one of the other beasts, or just of old age, every year in the abbey or in the village nearby. Besides, they'd be outside soon enough.

After a couple of weeks she and the kittens disappeared, though his blanket needed a very thorough washing as a reminder. He often heard them mewling in the barn, or came across the kittens playing in the garden. They all seemed healthy, which was a blessing, especially the little mottled one, whom he called Smoke - having named her in his fondness – for her ability to pass unseen into the halls of the abbey.

Her two sisters preferred to stay outside, so stay outside they did, and grew big and fat with mice and birds.

 

One morning he returned from Prime services and sat down at his desk to work on the manuscript he'd been laboring over for the past few months – not the great Gospel of his mentor; a lesser, less intricate text – and as he sat, the little tom-kitten came on whisper-light feet into his room and leapt up onto his lap.

"Hello, little one," Aidan said, setting down his quill and picking up the tom to put him back on the floor.

The tom-kitten yawned in discontent and clambered back up, then proceeded to knead the blanket covering Aidan's lap and lie down.

Aidan gazed down at him. The tom flicked his tail into Aidan's chin before settling back down, and Aidan sighed.

"Well, little waulker," he said fondly, "I suppose you can keep my lap warm, too."

 

He had to rise from his desk for Terce, so when it came time to leave, he picked the kitten (who had been rotating between leaping at stray pieces of straw from Aidan's mattress, and taking naps) up off his lap and deposited both him and the blanket in the corner.

When he returned, the kitten was perched on his chair, tiny paws clinging to the edge of his desk, claws dug in to keep its balance, as it peered at his work. 

There were, however, no inky footprints on the floor or table, nor claw-marks in the vellum, so Aidan only rubbed behind the kitten's ears.

"Curious, I see," he said, charmed, and put the kitten on the floor, where it wandered off, presumably for a meal.

 

Once, he called upon Brother Abraham, tom-kitten in tow, and said, "Is this little one suitable to stay inside the abbey?"

Brother Abraham laughed, white teeth showing bright in his dark face. "He'll keep the mice out of your bedding, sure enough, when he's grown," which seemed fitting enough, and Aidan watched him pounce at the edge of the blanket, or the sparkling brightness let off by some of his more intense inks. 

The tom-kitten was deaf, that much was clear from the beginning, him being white all over and odd-eyed besides, but Aidan's sight was failing. He determined to be the kitten's ears and the kitten would be his eyes, looking out for the mice that liked to nibble at everything when they could. 

 

Off and on the kitten – soon a cat full-grown – returned, prowling around Aidan's little room where he worked and slept. He often slept beside Aidan, occasionally clambering onto his face or chest, keeping them both a little warmer in the winter (if sometimes with more fur in Aidan's nose than to which he was quite accustomed).

It was sometimes nice, too, to have a friend to sit with when his hands were too shaky to hold a quill with any dexterity, and he worried about ruining the work. His little white fuller – not so little anymore – stayed with him, and would sniff at his work and bat his head into Aidan's palm, wanting petting.

Sometimes Pangur Bán would bring dead mice or birds in from outside and leave them on Aidan's pillow during services. Aidan didn't mind much, if you didn't count the blood, and anyway Pangur never waded in the ink except when Aidan pushed him to (that had been great fun, showing the young ones all the bright colors!) and then he would fussily lick himself clean, glaring.

 

"My good friend," Aidan said, scratching at his ears as he tried to muse on the designs he'd sketched in his wax drafting tablet, sighing over the unsteady lines in a hand that was growing too old for the work, "who guards me from roving mice – if only you could guard us from the Northmen, too."

Pangur didn't meow – he never had – but he purred under Aidan's hand, and rubbed his head against Aidan's chest.


End file.
